Great American Gymnastics Express (GAGE) in Blue Springs, Missouri, had long been known as a place where champions were made. Olympians, including Courtney McCool and Terin Humphrey, once trained there, drawing families nationwide who believed the gym could transform young talent into Olympic success. But behind the medals, worries quietly mounted.

Now those concerns have prompted SafeSport to suspend the gym’s longtime coach, Alvin “Al” Fong, for five years. The U.S. Center for SafeSport announced on Monday that Al Fong has been suspended until 2030 after an investigation that spanned years into claims of emotional abuse and physical misconduct.

Along with it, Fong’s coaching partner and wife, Armine Barutyan, a former Soviet gymnast from Armenia, has also been handed a suspension for one year.

The news came as a shock because of how recent her leadership role was. Just last month, Barutyan served as head coach for the USA gymnastics team at the Junior World Championships.

Now, as of December 22, 2025, both coaches are listed as “suspended from all contact.” This means they are not allowed to coach, train, or interact with athletes of any age in programs covered by SafeSport.

The SafeSport investigation into Al Fong began in 2020 after multiple former gymnasts and families came forward with concerns about his coaching methods. These reports included allegations of emotional, verbal, and physical abuse, and roughly 40 separate allegations were documented over many years, with behavior alleged to span from the early 2000s through the 2020s. Despite the seriousness of the claims, the process moved slowly.

By 2023, that frustration became public. The Orange County Register reported that former athletes and families were upset about long delays and a lack of clear communication from SafeSport. While they waited, the gym continued operating under the weight of unanswered questions.

Al Fong and Armine Barutyan had been running Great American Gymnastics Express since 1979. But now, in the wake of the sport confronting questions of athlete safety and the culture of coaching with devastating implications for today’s athletes, their legacy is being scrutinized.

However, both coaches still have the option of appealing their suspensions. If they do so, that process will determine whether these suspensions remain, are modified, or are lifted. Even so, gymnastics faces other problems, including its overall culture.

The dark side of elite gymnastics

In the 1980s, Christy Henrich, a gymnast who was coached by Fong, was facing a tragic battle. When a judge told her at a 1988 meet in Hungary that she had to lose weight, she was already at 90 pounds. According to the judge, however, she had to lose more to make the Olympic team.

But she missed making the Olympic team by a fraction of a point. Then in 1994, having battled anorexia for many years, she passed away at the age of 22, weighing less than 60 pounds at the time.

Her determination and high pain tolerance meant that Henrich was able to hide her struggles with anorexia from her parents and coaches for a while but ultimately was unable to allow herself to fully heal, even after it came to light.

“No matter how well she did, the message she gave herself was that it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t OK,” said Dr. Gail Vaughn, Henrich’s therapist.

As Henrich’s mother told Sports Illustrated after her passing, “It’s the whole system. No matter what you do, it’s never, never enough. The whole system has got to change—parents, coaches, the federation.”

Henrich’s family hoped that their daughter’s death would prove a reckoning in the sport, to reform its culture and avoid future cases of tragedy like Christy Henrich’s. “Christy’s death will help lead to a greater public awareness of her illness and the difficulties and pressures encountered by young gymnasts in this country,” said the family via a statement by their attorney.

Now, decades on, a culture that was too often obsessed with medals at the expense of the well-being of athletes has faced another reckoning.